Yeah you could use it as a regular pc, probably a bit of an overkill for everyday type use and i don't think you'd see any advantage of running 8 cores during normal use. The only issue is what OS you will run. You will need a 64bit OS to be able to take advantage of all 8g gigs otherwise you'll only be able to access 3gb with a 32bit OS.

As for the price i have no idea, you might have to look online to see what similar systems are selling for.